


we can't make any promises (but you can make me a drink)

by okaynextcrisis



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 01:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19052692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaynextcrisis/pseuds/okaynextcrisis
Summary: Family: where when you have to go there, they have to let you in.





	we can't make any promises (but you can make me a drink)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a dream in which Bill and Laura were living in the Full House house. I make no apologies. Title borrowed from "Delicate" by Taylor Swift.

“How was your day?” Bill asks, sliding between the sheets beside Laura, the old mattress creaking beneath his weight, as he ducks his head to avoid hitting the sloping wood-beamed attic ceiling.  

Her half-smile hurts, the way that the silk scarf kissing her pink scalp hurts, the way that her cool skin and jutting bones ache deep in his.  “Another day, another drip.”

“Did they…” _Say the treatment’s working, it’s not working, if the cancer’s shrinking, growing, if we have years, months, weeks?_

He clears his throat.  “How are you feeling?”

Her green eyes hold a mild scolding, a soft warning.  She will talk when she wants, share news when she has it.  He is not to push. This has been made clear.

“Better than you look.  The kids run you ragged again?”

He reaches for the bottle tucked under the bed, and she snorts.  He pours two glasses, even though Laura will barely touch hers. Her fingers are cold where they brush his.

“Thank God for the baby,” he says finally.  “She’s the only one who gives any kind of recommendation for procreation.”

Anastasia is four years old, but somehow Bill still thinks of her as a baby.  It comes, he guesses, of living on the opposite coast from his brother’s family for so long, of watching the kids grow in Facebook photos instead of day by day.

“She’s adopted,” Laura points out.  “That might help. I always said a mix of Saul and Ellen’s DNA would be...challenging.”

Bill grunts.  “I’m not sure ‘challenging’ really covers Kara and Lee.”

“We’re not really seeing them at their best,” Laura reminds him, a touch of reproach in her voice.  

“It’s not my fault their mother got herself ten to fifteen on a money laundering charge,” Bill retorts.  

It’s easier than admitting to the ways in which he himself is not at his best, the permanent tightness in his throat since that day in the doctor’s office, the nights spent lying awake, watching the shallow rise and fall of his wife’s chest.  It’s easier than admitting that moving across the country and caring for his nephew and nieces is nothing compared to watching Laura suffer through a clinical trial that has yet to yield results.

“And it’s not my fault that Ellen’s trial was so hard on their father,” he adds.  

Laura’s eyebrows lift.  Saul’s increasing drinking is another bone of contention between them.  

“He’s going to be fine,” Bill insists, stubbornly repeating the refrain of the past several weeks.  “He just needs some time and help with the kids while he pulls himself together.”

Laura only sighs.  She will not bring up rehab again tonight, will not remind him that his brother’s behavior isn’t good for his kids, will not demand that Saul needs to shape up or ship out.  

The argument lies between them anyway, silent, a tender spot where they are already sore.

“But Ana was good?” she asks, changing the subject.

“Always,” Bill says, muscles relaxing into the bed, closer to his wife.  “She’s a trooper. She’s gotten so self-sufficient since Ellen’s been away; she picks out her own outfit, and dresses herself, and gets her own bowl of cereal in the morning...meanwhile Kara and Lee can’t even get themselves out of bed.”

“Teenagers are tough,” Laura says, her tone philosophical, full of twenty years’ experience as a high school teacher.  

Bill snorts into his glass.  “I’ve been shot down in battle, and it wasn’t as scary as waking up Lee in the morning.  I went to wake up Kara, and I caught her sneaking in her bedroom window.”

Laura winces.  “Where was she?”

Bill shrugs.  “Apparently I’m not allowed to know.  Or ask. She claims her father doesn’t care how late she stays out, or what she does, or with whom…”

“She’s not entirely wrong.”

“She’s very wrong if she thinks this behavior is going to continue,” Bill insists.  “I told her if I catch her sneaking out, I’m going to confiscate her phone for a month.”

“That ought to at least motivate her to do her sneaking more effectively,” Laura says cheerfully.  

Bill ignores her.  “Meanwhile she and Lee fight every time they’re within ten feet of each other.  If it weren’t for how much they both hate me, they wouldn’t have anything in common.”

He takes a deep swallow of his whiskey.  “I think we’re making progress, though; Lee only slammed his door in my face twice today.”

“It’s the little things,” Laura agrees.

He rubs the bridge of his nose.  “On the whole, though, I might prefer his open anger to his sister’s cheerful disobedience.  I asked Kara to feed the dog, and she sat next to Viper for twenty minutes on her phone, making faces at her Snaphat.”

Laura winces.  “Snapchat, my love.”

“Meanwhile Ana wanted to help, so she climbed up on a chair and fed Viper the entire lasagna I’d made for dinner tonight.  I ran out for pizza, and when I came back Viper had puked up noodles and tomato sauce all over the house.”

Laura shakes her head.  “I can’t believe I slept through that.”

Bill shudders.  “Ana was crying and trying to stick a thermometer in Viper’s mouth, Lee was yelling at Kara to clean it up, Kara was documenting the whole thing on her phone, and somehow by the time I’d cleaned up the house, they’d eaten every single slice of both pizzas.  I had to go out again and shop for a third dinner for us.”

Laura laughs, really laughs, that soft silvery giggle that has somehow survived scalpels in her flesh and poison in her veins.  “Well, everyone’s alive, anyway. That’s the main thing.”

He takes another swallow, the whiskey burning past the lump in his throat.  “It is.”


End file.
